Sarah Sze

Since the late 1990s Sarah Sze's signature sculptural aesthetic has presented ephemeral installations that penetrate walls, suspend from ceilings and burrow into the ground. The artist creates immense, yet intricate site-specific works which manipulate every space - be that a gallery, domestic interior or street corner - and profoundly affects the way it is viewed. Sze's practice exists at the intersection of sculpture, painting and architecture where her formal interest in light, air and movement is coupled with an intuitive understanding of colour and texture. Sze utilises a myriad of everyday objects in her installations from cotton buds and tea bags to water bottles and ladders, light bulbs and electric fans. Presented as leftovers or traces of human behaviour, these items, released from their commonplace duty possess a certain vitality and ambition within the work. Her careful consideration of every shift in scale between the humble and the monumental, the throwaway and the precious, the incidental and the essential solicits a new experience of space, disorienting and reorienting the viewer at every turn.

Born in Boston in 1969, Sarah Sze currently lives and works in New York. She has exhibited internationally, presenting installations at Liverpool Biennial (2008), Maison Hermés, Tokyo (2008), Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2006), Whitney Museum, New York (2003), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2002) and Fondation Cartier in Paris (1999). Two permanent installations are on view at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Seattle Opera House. She has recently had a solo show at BALTIC centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2009). Sarah Sze was the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.

www.sarahsze.com

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